REVIEW ARTICLES
Choe U-Ram’s [stil laif]
Kim Sunhee
Director, Kim Tschang-Yeul Art Museum •JeJu
I still vividly remember when I first met Choe U-Ram and visited his studio, which was around 2005. It was just after the rainy season in the early summer. Choe’s studio was a renovated storage room in the basement. There were cement blocks laying around, possibly because the rain had smeared into the floor. I was a bit surprised by the unexpected situation, and Choe cautiously told me that he would work hard and come out of the studio one day. The studio was full of many computers, machinery parts, tools, metal sheets, plastic pieces, screws, countless drawings, and paperwork to order parts from factories. It was more of an electronics shop or a metal workshop that one might find in every neighborhood than an artist’s studio. Most of his works were disassembled or in the middle of production, so I could only see two or three small works. Nevertheless, I decided to invite him to the MAM Project at Mori Art Museum in the following year without any hesitation. It was because his work was very novel and unique, and I felt sufficient artistic conviction and will from him. Choe promptly started to conceptualize his exhibition and invested himself into the preparation for the exhibition for a year. As a result, the exhibition at Mori Art Museum successfully opened and gained more attention than expected. The artist was also pleased with his exhibition, wanting to stay longer in Tokyo. He said that the city was a great help to his work since it was an interesting and inspiring place. Thus, he spent some time in Tokyo with his wife who was his most intimate partner in life and art. Then we could finally afford the time to meet with each other in a more relaxed manner. Whenever we met, Choe and his wife passionately told stories about big and little things such as ideas about Choe’s new works or what they worked on all night. Although it was a while ago, these now have become pleasurable memories. In the following decade, the couple has been widely recognized and working in the international art scene. They are continuously creating new works at a better studio with an advanced system where one does not have to worry about flooding.
The unidentifiably alien strangeness we see in Choe’s works on first encounter does not go away even after we become familiar with them. The significance of Choe U-Ram’s art lies in this irreducible unidentifiability. By making such alien life forms, Choe U-Ram is in essence sounding an alert about the mechanized civilization generated by human desire. … By satirizing contemporary technophile trends, Choe U-Ram goes one step further to demand that we pause from our exaltations of scientific achievement to reflect for a moment: in order to proceed as good partners with machines, we humans must curb our demands.
Excerpt from “Alien Life Forms: The Art of Choe U-Ram” for MAM Project 004:
Choe U-Ram (Mori Art Museum, 2006) by Kim Sunhee
The title of Choe U-Ram’s current exhibition is [stil laif]. As it is written in phonetic alphabet, it is difficult to distinguish whether it means ‘steel life,’ ‘steal life,’ or ‘still life.’ The artist does not tell which is the intended meaning of the title and merely provides a title in phonetic alphabet. By doing so, he tries to convey his art not as a singular, fixed meaning but as layers of different meanings.
Steel Life – The Beauty of Steel
For Choe U-Ram's exhibition [stil laif] – to talk first about steel, the main material that the artist uses for his work – also possesses multiple characteristics. It is convenient to work with and beautiful to look at while being cold, emotionless, and inhuman. Choe tells about steel as a material, “Aptly soft, aptly firm.” To him, living organisms also contain such irony and complexity. They are beings that persistently keep themselves alive in the most severe environment yet often wither in vain. The first impression of steel in Choe’s work is cold, sharp, and delicate. However, once it starts to move in elegance, one can feel certain warmth and even a sense of kinship as a living existence.
Choe’s work starts from constructing a story and narrating it, developing rough ideas that he acquires in everyday life with and without intention into more concrete concepts. He then works on three-dimensional construction based on the pre-constructed stories and visual drawings. Thus, idea sketches are very important. Choe’s sketches are both basic blue prints for complex machine constructions and important artistic records. Since he cuts, carves, grinds, and glues raw materials based on his idea sketches countless times to finish his meticulous work, a lot of labor and time are consumed during the process of production. All the numerous parts used in his work are designed by the artist. A single work by Choe is born after overcoming unexpected gaps between the plan and reality with countless adjustments and corrections. The minute delicacy and completion are no less than the artisanal obsession. He continues his experimentation and adjustment to acquire the desired texture, color, and finish. For Pavilion (2012), a work inspired by Baldacchino at Saint Paul’s Cathedral, Choe conducted a number of experiments to produce the specific gold color to use in the work. However, it was impossible to realize a gold color that was noble yet avaricious, which symbolized the desire of humans. In the end, there was no other way than using real gold. The gold color of Pavilion was completed by gilding the thinnest layers of pure gold onto the work by hand.
Choe assumes that the way living organisms exist is also as unique as what he had to find during the production of Pavilion. Every living organism comes to have the best shape and color through the evolutionary process with certain reason. Choe’s mechanic organisms are also produced with a certain kind of steel, by a certain method of processing, and in a certain shape. These are selected and decided by what the artist assigns to each mechanical living organism he creates. To Choe, steel must have been the best choice to symbolize modern society and realize his novel imagination.
In reflection, Choe’s studio resembled a metal workshop and it still does. Indeed, it is clear evidence of his artisanal struggle.
Steal Life – Stealing the Lives of Humans: Fear of the Other Side of Modern Civilization
Why has the artist been interested in mechanic organisms? The artist drew his self-portrait in 1977 when he was seven. Surprisingly enough, he expressed himself and a whale as mechanic structures in his self-portrait. His view on living organisms as mechanic systems was already developed in his early days. Regarding the environment around him, this seems to be natural. His grandfather was an engineer that designed and produced Sibal, the first car produced in South Korea; His parents studied art at university, when he was young, cartoons about robots were widely read, and for a while he worked for an educational robot company for living. Choe describes himself as “a person that likes machines very much.” Meanwhile, he frequently watches nature documentaries with his appreciation of the wonder of nature. While ‘life’ has been considered as an exclusive property of living organisms, Choe regards ‘movement’ as the sign of life. He then gives elements of moving to inorganic matters, reviving them as living organisms. In this sense, movement is the most important element of Choe’s mechanic organisms and electricity is their source of power. Thus, electricity is a necessity in Choe’s sculptural works. In the end, they exist under the same context with the people of our time that completely rely on mechanic equipment and electricity.
Choe’s mysterious mechanic organisms resemble different insects, animals, and plants: Lumina Virgo (2002) appropriates the image of Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam as an artistic inspiration for a mechanic part; Nox Pennatus (2005) shows a mechanic organism that lives on the polluted materials in the city; Ultima Mudfox (2002) is a mutant of nano-machines that broke free from a controlled environment; Urbanus (2006) is a noble organism that absorbs energy from the urban environment; And Una Lumino (2008) is a mechanic organism that lives through a unique inter-communication system. Although these mechanic organisms have different backgrounds and take different shapes, all of them are kinds of mutants. They are mutants that assume unexpected possibilities in the society full of science and technology that is led by humans. In other words, with mechanic mutant organisms, the artist indicates the fear that humans can be dominated by mechanic systems that they have created. He raises a serious question about whether the advanced science and technology are merely positive or have they brought the humanity happiness and abundance. While we are enthusiastic about the remarkable advancement of the machine civilization and indulge in its abundance, we fear the over-velocity of advancement and the possibility of us being replaced by machines. The fear that machines will steal jobs from humans, which will be the stealing of livelihood from oneself and one's family – this fear is about the future where humans are replaced by machines. Further, it is a warning to ourselves, which craves to preoccupy machines, blinded by power and desire. In a way, it is a confession that we as humans are the ones who put ourselves in danger.
Meanwhile, Choe’s recent works are very much different from his early works. While the early works focused on conceiving mechanic organisms, the recent works focus more on the problems of humanity. They do not fully trust science and technology and deal with the negative aspects of machine civilization, such as social contradiction and distrust. With enlightenment that the civilization of science and technology does not always advance toward a beneficial direction to humans, Choe’s recent works reveal a strong criticism of modern civilization. Hence, the works deal with different subjects. Accompanied with such a conceptual shift is the change of their look, including the materials used in the production of his works. A work that shows the most progressive change is Scarecrow (2012), which is a black figure that can either be an angel or a devil constructed with bundles of black electrical wires. The movement of the black body, the light that it exudes along with its shadow, materializes into a new god emerging in the age of the Internet, giving an ominous and powerful impression. URC-1 (2014) and URC-2 (2016) also express the contradiction and distrust in the modern society. The two works are created by revitalizing head lights and tail lights of a deserted cars. Norm (2016) is composed of more than a hundred tape measures that approach viewers as if they were antennae of some living organism. The work symbolizes humans that possess different individual values and standards. The title of Choe’s first solo exhibition in 1998, Civilization∈Host, is a reminder that the artist is still continuing his studies on the humanity and civilization after two decades since his debut. He brings out a question that humans are the parasite of civilization and under the threat of waning down behind civilization’s explosion of advancement. In works such as Arbor Deus (2010) or Custos Cavum (2011) that appropriates the stories of myths, the artist suggests that we stay moderate and communicate with each other.
Still Life ― Inanimate Objects That Talk About Animate Ones
For Choe who considers movement as the sign of life and expresses it as the key feature of his work, the notion of still life – a composition of inanimate objects – is an ironic concept. However, irony and contrast persist in his work, seemingly working as tools to emphasize the providence of nature and the universe. At this intersection of inanimate objects and living organisms, ‘anima-machine’ is born. Irony and metaphor prevail in these anima-machines: Pavilion (2012) presents a contrast between the most noble and the most base; Merry-go-round (2012) is a bizarre structure that looks beautiful and content yet revolving in a speed that no one can ride on it; Cakra-2552-a (2008) materializes a moving mandala that shows the divine order of the universe; and Ouroboros (2008) symbolically presents the desire of immortality as it relentlessly consumes itself. When his works are seen in motion, such ironies can be read in a broader concept of circulation with the meaning of time added to them.
In Imago (2014), a mechanic organism that has two minds and one heart, Choe bluntly reveals the coexistence of ironies. This mechanic organism, which circulates yin and yang, darkness and brightness, and life and death through its body, has a symmetrical head and tail. In a cosmic perspective, life and death happen at the same moment. Such a circular way of thinking is based on the Eastern philosophy that understands the universe and nature, humans and all things in the universe as existing in an organic relationship. Choe instills movement into cold, inanimate objects made of steel and turns them into animate beings. He then uses them as tolls to reflect on the life and existence. In Latin, the term ‘imago’ means ‘image.’ This facilitates an image of the artist watching the providence of the universe as if it was a mere landscape. This is part of the story of Choe’s art that defines his work as an ‘Anima Machine’. Choe tells that his Anima Machines are machines with souls. In Latin, ‘anima’ means something that is ‘moving’ and ‘with a soul.’ The term is also an origin of another term ‘animism.’ Choe U-Ram’s Anima Machines are embedded with the fundamental principles of religion.
As an adaptable artist that quickly adjusts himself to new technologies and gadgets in the age of science and technology, Choe has been pursuing artistic expressions that are in quite a different dimension from those existing forms of art. What is important here is that he has been expanding the boundary of art not by trying to represent existing subjects in reality, but by creating Anima Machines that exist only to lead lives as living organisms, which are absent in the reality. His works are created by purely imaginary hypotheses and artisanal labor. They often exist as singular works, as well as expand to a continuous series of works.
A point to remember in his work is that the artist does not pursue mechanical perfection, although he meticulously plans and produces his work by using the given material and technical information to the fullest. As mentioned earlier, the artist always presumes that modern civilization is rather imperfect all the time. He accepts that there can be errors and loopholes at any time. In this sense, it seems meaningless to mention the issues of being scientific or unscientific with regards to the artist’s work. Although the long artisanal process and beautiful outlook are very important elements in his work, the artist is more or less a sculptor that never follows the existing artistic tradition and dynamically engages with the benefit of modern science, technology, and environment. Those that live in our time possess different emotions and desires than people from the past. They also have different artistic inspirations. In conclusion, Choe strives to convey the message about the fictitious, inherent contradiction, and incompleteness of capitalism, modern science and technology. Choe’s beautiful and mysterious works lead us to reflect on the desires in the real world.
